All posts in category Barack Obama

Try a little thought experiment. Imagine for a moment that you’re an experienced Taliban commander.

You’ve been fighting for a very long time, and have been responsible for the deaths of a great many people. Guerrilla warfare is your family business and it’s pretty much the only job you’ve ever had.
In 30 years you’ve seen them all come and go, starting with the Russians. You saw the CIA arrive with arms shipments to help kick out the Soviets and you fought the rival Mujahedeen warlords in the aftermath of the Communists’ departure.

Your friends took control of much of the country and then fought a bitter civil war with the Northern Alliance. You also sided with Al-Qaeda’s terrorists, which wasn’t a smart move. After 9/11 the CIA and allied special forces turned up to clear them, and you, out. However, the Americans failed to press home their advantage and quickly diverted their attention to another war. This allowed you space to start up operations again, bit by bit.

Then, in 2003, the allies scaled up their efforts and NATO arrived alongside a large U.S. contingent. You saw the allies make some progress, but you and your friends have a lot of experience of the terrain. Of course, it’s tough fighting with the Americans and the British, but eventually – you calculate – the westerners will want to go home. You, on the other hand, are not planning to go anywhere. You and your friends have all the time in the world.

And then you hear about this new President of the United States, called something Obama. You say you don’t watch satellite television on religious grounds but if it’s for reasons of war planning then you can make an exception. You turn-on the TV in the corner of your cave and Obama is making a speech on the war in which you fight. Your young trainee from Leeds, England, is good at simultaneous translation and promises to talk you through it.

This infidel Obama is a certainly a different character from the infidel Bush, you observe. A very smooth operator. He says he’s sending more troops as part of something called a surge, as many as 30,000 of them. That’s a bit worrying; it looks like the war is about to get tougher. But you remember that by 1985 the Soviets had 118,000 troops in your country and they still lost. Now, what’s the American president promising? He’s going to train-up the Afghan army? But you know that lot inside out – this pledge doesn’t worry you one bit.

And then, what’s this? The key point. After a year of this surge, says Obama, the allies will start withdrawing their troops and scaling back their effort. This, you reflect, sounds like a very weird way for your opponents to run their side of the war. It looks like they are saying ‘give it one last heave’ and then, whether it works or not, they will start leaving in 2011.

You turn off the television, thank the young guy from Leeds, and set about discussing it with your friends. Well, that’s very interesting. Perhaps, says one colleague, if you all just lie low and hide for a year then the Americans and the British will think they’ve won. They’ll leave and you can quickly get back in control. Hmmmm… the Americans and NATO are cleverer than that, you say, they’ll come looking for the Taliban.

No, it sounds like you’re going to have to steel yourself for a year more of increased fighting. But what’s one more year in Afghanistan’s long and troubled history? And your opponent has just told you, on television in front of the world, that after that he’s going to start withdrawing.

Now, Taliban commander, do you feel depressed or perhaps rather encouraged?

Barrack Obama famously promised to extend the hand of friendship to Iran if it unclenched its fist. Since then, much diplomacy and posturing has ensued – all designed to get Iran to give up or scale back its nuclear ambitions. It doesn’t appear to be working.

On Sunday, a meeting of the Iranian cabinet chaired by President Ahmadinejad gave the go-ahead to the building of ten new uranium enrichment sites. Construction work will begin within two months. The Times reports:

“Each site will be the size of the existing Natanz plant with the aim of producing between 250-300 tonnes of uranium a year. IRNA, Iran’s state news agency, says the Government ordered the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran to begin construction of five uranium enrichment sites that have already been studied and propose five other sites for future construction.”

Of course, several days ago there was a rare show of unity from the major powers, with condemnation of Iran from the U.S., China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany after a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency. But this was only after a highly confused and contradictory set of responses to Iran stretching back some time.

In contrast, Ahmadinejad is single-mindedly pursuing his objective and seems to regard any offer as a sign of weakness on the part of his adversaries. As it stands, it looks like the Iranian President is running rings round Obama and the rest of the international community.

On May 27 1964, President Johnson confided in an aide on a subject that was already starting to become a preoccupation. “The more I stayed awake last night thinking about this thing, the more… It looks like to me we’re gettin’ in to another Korea,” Robert Dallek quotes Johnson saying in Flawed Giant. “And I don’t think it’s worth fighting for and I don’t think we can get out. And it’s just the biggest damn mess… What in the hell is Vietnam worth to me… What is it worth to this country?”

Johnson’s agonies over Vietnam were to get much worse. At that point he had yet to commit U.S. ground troops and when he did the resulting war overshadowed his next four years in power. It is said that it is Johnson’s fate that the current President seeks to avoid in Afghanistan, as though this is an adequate explanation of why he is declining to make a clear call about the next stage of the war.

Again, last night, a decision on what to do was put off by Obama. The shape of a possible surge will now not be decided for another few weeks – after Thanksgiving, we are told. Foreign leaders had expected news of American plans after the widely trailed war council in Washington on Wednesday.

Gordon Brown even let slip in the House of Commons that Britain thought it would hear in the next few days. What is causing the delay? It looks suspiciously like presidential prevarication. But Afghanistan is not Vietnam; they are not the same.

The president’s war council meets on Wednesday and a decision on troop numbers for Afghanistan is expected to emerge. This vital meeting will help shape – either way – the eventual outcome of a war which is in serious trouble, with public confidence slipping. Defeat on the ground is now a real possibility.

It certainly seems to have taken the White House a long time to get to the point at which it feels able to make a decision. But we, the West, are where we are.

Excitement is building about Copenhagen (myself, I can hardly wait). But what is actually going to be achieved at the UN’s climate change summit when planeloads of politicians, officials, NGO types and campaigners fly in? These summits are certainly great fun for those involved but what, realistically, will be the end result?

President Obama has said that he wants there to be a meaningful deal at Copenhagen, and I’m sure he does, but that’s looking less and less likely. Now the U.K. government has further clouded the outlook. The BBC reports Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband admitting that there won’t be a legally-binding treaty. But wasn’t that supposed to be the point of everyone trooping to Copenhagen and staying there between December the 7th and 18th?

“We would have preferred a full legal treaty, it has to be said,” said Mr Miliband. “I think the important thing about the agreement we now seek in December is that while it may be a political agreement it must lead, on a very clear timetable, to a legally binding treaty. A lot of people still think that we can do something that will lead to real implementation in the fight against climate change. Also, I’ll be completely clear about this: I think an agreement without numbers is not a great agreement. In fact it’s a wholly inadequate agreement.”

Of course, it is possible that expectations are being managed down only so that any subsequent deal can be talked up at the culmination of the Copenhagen shindig. But it doesn’t feel like that’s the case; the obstacles seem genuine. Indeed, it looks like it will produce a ”political agreement”, maybe without any numbers in it. (As a mentor of mine, and veteran political journalist used to say: “This agreement is not worth the paper it’s not written on.”)

You may think all this a cause for celebration, or you may not. I mention it simply because shortly there will begin non-stop Copenhagen coverage on the broadcast media and in the public prints around the globe. And it is worth being aware of the mundane political reality of Copenhagen as the media-narrative, with its fake drama, starts to play out.

The same questions will be repeated like an incessant drum-beat, speeding up and getting louder as we move ever closer to the great day when the summit opens: Will there be deal? Can they save the planet? Will there be a treaty? Is half the world’s population going to drown/fry if the people in Copenhagen don’t sign up to something now?!

It is simply worth remembering before all that starts, right from the outset, that this is about politics. And that key participants are already acknowledging that what goes on at Copenhagen is not, to use a phrase carelessly, the end of the world.

General Stanley McChrystal earlier this month in Kandahar, Afghanistan. The General wants a “surge” of 40,000 troops. Photograph: Getty Images

It was the worst day for American forces in Afghanistan in four years yesterday, with 14 lives lost, all in helicopter crashes.

Speaking during a visit to Naval Air Station Jacksonville on the same day, the president said: “While I will never hesitate to use force to protect the American people or our vital interests, I also promise you this — and this is very important as we consider our next steps in Afghanistan: I will never rush the solemn decision of sending you into harm’s way. I won’t risk your lives unless it is absolutely necessary.”

His audience approved and for entirely understandable reasons. They are in uniform and may have to deal with the practical consequences when “armchair generals” and civilian hawks sitting at home demand they be sent into action. But while it sounds considered and eminently reasonable, I’m not sure that the “no rush” approach on the next stage of this campaign does anyone – the U.S. military, America’s allies such as Britain or the Afghan people – much good.

Apparently it’s all to do with iPhones becoming sentient last year. They take over the world by having Sarah Palin (a cyborg) elected before she blows up the planet. Almost all biological life ends, but in 2025 the few surviving humans send one of their own, Barack Obama, back in time to stop Palin and the iPhones.

Say what you like about health-care, giving up the missile-shield or the size of the deficit, there’s just no way that George W. Bush could have done this and gotten away with it in such style.

At a festival held at the White House to celebrate Hispanic music and culture he, the first lady, the Obama children and and Jennifer Lopez finished the evening by dancing on stage. Gloria Estafan was also involved I believe. The BBC has the Lopez/Obama footage here.

But even better is the footage below, involving a singer called Thalia (I was hitherto entirely unaware of her work). Obama gets up from his table to dance. And he’s good.

The U.S. Secretary of State is in Moscow for talks. Iran is on the agenda.
When the White House announced last month that it was dropping its current plans for a missile shield (and replacing them with a proposal much more modest) there was a degree of criticism.

But just wait, we were told, this is a clever ploy to get the Russians to change their position on Iran. They’ll really consider sanctions now. And surely they’ll have no option after President Barack Obama revealed in late September that the Iranians had been keeping a uranium enrichment site secret? Er… it hasn’t quite worked out that way.